Bolden's knowledge should help at WR

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Let’s get this out of the way first: Rob Bolden might be playing receiver now, but he hasn’t completely abandoned the idea of playing quarterback.

“I’m still open to quarterback,” he said last week, only a few days into his first-ever attempt at playing wideout. “I want to play quarterback and any time that they would need me, I’m willing to switch back and forth or whatever.”

Bolden is also a realist, though. He sees the writing on the wall -- most likely, LSU will pick between dual-threat quarterbacks Anthony Jennings or Brandon Harris as the starter -- and knows that playing receiver might be his best chance to get on the field during his senior season.

Ronald Martinez/Getty ImagesRob Bolden knows it's unlikely he will be at quarterback for LSU this coming season.

So for the first time in his life -- Bolden said he played safety, tight end and quarterback as youth football player, but never receiver -- he’s attempting to become the guy who catches the passes instead of the guy who throws them.

“It’s just going to take a little extra, just after practice, doing a little bit with Coach [Adam Henry, LSU’s receivers coach],” Bolden said. “He’s going to coach me up and show me how to do all the stuff that I need to learn.”

Catching the ball doesn’t appear to be a problem. In his first practice at receiver, Bolden turned heads with a one-handed catch. At 6-foot-4 and 209 pounds, overpowering cornerbacks who try to jam him at the line of scrimmage probably won’t be an issue, either.

“He’s pretty big,” receiver Travin Dural chuckled. “I was telling him some techniques about how to get off the jam and he was like, ‘I’m bigger than all the cornerbacks and I’m stronger, so I can just throw them around.'”

Not that brute force is a completely effective method.

“It’s a little bit of that, but at the same time, you’ve got to learn how to use your hands, which [at last Tuesday’s practice] I kind of struggled with that,” Bolden said. “But once I learn, I’m sure -- I’m a big, strong guy and that won’t really faze me at all.”

It’s still extremely early in Bolden’s transition, so any predictions of future stardom would be premature. Understandably, LSU’s coaches are taking a wait-and-see attitude as he learns the ins and outs at his new position.

“He’s taking some snaps at receiver and it appears to be a pretty good move,” LSU coach Les Miles said. “He made a couple nice catches [in the first spring practice]. Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how he performs.”

Such a move is not unprecedented. For example, Kodi Burns shifted from wideout at Auburn in 2009 when he lost a quarterback competition against Chris Todd. Burns became a valuable role player and even caught a touchdown pass against Oregon in the BCS title game the following season.

As it was with Burns, one thing that should ease Bolden’s transition is that he has a quarterback’s working knowledge of the offensive scheme. He already knew how the various receivers’ routes complemented each other in the passing game and thinks he might be able to help players at his new position gain a better understanding of what a quarterback sees on different plays.

“It’s a great opportunity with me knowing the offense the way that I do,” Bolden said. “I know it like a quarterback, so I know the thought process of it, I know the reads, I know everything. So I may be able to help some of the other guys out as far as lining up and doing all that type of stuff.

“You know a lot of stuff that a lot of other guys wouldn’t. Being in there with [offensive coordinator Cam Cameron], you’re going to learn the offense in and out -- this way, that way, every type of way. That’s going to benefit me a lot. The only thing that I will have to really learn is how to run certain routes and that type of stuff.”

Bolden certainly has spent enough time in quarterback meeting rooms to develop that knowledge base. He’s entering his fifth season in college -- and his third at LSU -- although he hasn’t appeared in a game since 2011. At the time he was at Penn State, where he started 17 games as a freshman and sophomore before transferring to LSU in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

He has only watched from the sidelines at LSU, redshirting in 2012 and backing up Zach Mettenberger last season. Even when Mettenberger suffered a season-ending knee injury late last fall, Miles’ staff turned to then-freshman Jennings to start against Iowa in the Outback Bowl, which offers some insight into where Bolden sat in the quarterback pecking order.

So now he’s a wideout, and his new position mates are willing to teach Bolden the ins and outs of the job. Considering how the Tigers lost their most experienced and productive wideouts in Odell Beckham, Jarvis Landry, Kadron Boone and James Wright, Bolden should have more than enough opportunity to gain some experience this spring.

LSU signed four receivers whom ESPN ranked among the nation’s top 300 prospects -- led by No. 1 wideout Malachi Dupre and No. 3 Trey Quinn -- but those signees won’t arrive on campus until this summer. For now, Bolden is the newest member of an inexperienced receiving corps, and his fellow receivers are trying to encourage him that wideout is a position where he can be successful.

“It was kind of funny seeing him put on gloves and catch balls with us, but I just took him in just like he’s any other guy,” redshirt freshman John Diarse said. “Any little question he has, I try to answer to the best of my knowledge and just try to keep him encouraged that, ‘You’re an athlete. You can do anything you put your mind to.’ So I’m trying to keep him going here."